Bizarre Spider In Ecuador Closely Resembles A Bunny Rabbit

This Harvestman from the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador looks like a bunny with long ears. Its scientific name is Metagryne bicolumnata, from the family of Cosmetidae, in the order of Opiliones, colloquially known as Harvestmen or daddy longlegs. Though superficially similar to spiders they are not closely related to spiders order Araneae, but belong to the same class of Arachnida.

Contrary to a common belief Harvestman do not have venom glands and are absolutely harmless. Harvestmen have been around for at least 400 million years and lived even before the dinosaurs.

Ecuador is one of 17 megadiverse countries, it actually has the highest biodiversity per square kilometer of any nation, with over 1660 species of birds, some 4000 species of butterflies and thousands of colorful moths, more than 500 amphibians, as well as a unique flora with e.g. over 4300 species of orchids.

Watching this bizarre looking “Bunny Harvestman” one cannot help but wonder if a mad scientist has grafted a rabbit's head onto an octet of spindly spider legs. Hilarious! This strange-looking bunny-spider was filmed on July 11 2017 by Andreas Kay.

Surprisingly, the members of the Arachnid class are not classified as spiders even though they have eight legs. Footage shows that this curious creature has a dark body with a pair of eye spots situated on its back midway between its true eyes and the awkward “bunny ears” rise above from the edge of its abdomen. Crazy!

Maybe the eye spots and ear-like protuberances are meant to fool predators into thinking the creature is larger than it really is. Kay snapped this bizarre creature while exploring the Amazon rainforest of eastern Ecuador. It was first described in 1959 by German arachnid specialist Carl Friedrich Roewer and left scientists amazed!